Cultural Similarities and Differences in Relationship Goals in Intercultural Romantic Couples

Abstract

Intercultural romantic relationships and multicultural families have increased in the United States and worldwide. Researchers have found that intercultural couples report high rates of conflict and relationship instability, which may be partly explained by differences between partners in relationship goals (e.g., how much intimacy is desired and how to approach conflict). Using data from 40 intercultural couples (N = 80), we test whether greater similarity in relationship goals between romantic partners is related to greater perceived partner responsiveness and, thereby, greater relationship quality. By means of Bayesian analyses, our results suggest that similarity of relationship goals is associated with both perceived responsiveness and relationship quality, but without evidence of mediation. Our results show that cultural similarities and differences exist in relationship goals in intercultural couples, and they are connected to relationship functioning. This information can be used to assist clinicians in understanding the interpersonal processes that make-up healthy relationship functioning in intercultural couples.

Comprehensive scoping review of research on intercultural love and romantic relationships

“…Following the view of many contemporaries (Bustamante et al, 2011;Fonseca et al, 2020Fonseca et al, , 2021Holzapfel et al, 2018), we define an intercultural romantic relationship as a romantic union between two people who self-identify as belonging to different national, racial, ethnic, language, and/or religious backgrounds. It may seem that the social and cultural characteristics of one's ethnicity, language and religious beliefs are most intuitive in defining one's cultural background.…”

WeChat as the coordinator of polymedia: Chinese women maintaining intercultural romantic relationships

“…After the 17 participants established relationship with their foreign partners, they all face aspects of the following three barriers to intimacy: trust shortage, culture difference and fragmented timespace (Fonseca et al, 2020;Lan, 2015;Nehring and Wang, 2016;Tsai, 2011). According to some of the participants, WeChat has helped them and their partners establish a sense of trust.…”

“…Thirdly and more importantly, the economic reforms and subsequent neoliberalisation have also produced a new ‘desiring China’ regime (Rofel, 2007) which has heightened Chinese women's sense of individualism and consumerist aspirations (Tan and Shi, 2020). Confucian doctrines still dominate Chinese society.…”

“…We argue that this gendered power asymmetry stems from three distinct technocultural processes that work in tandem. The first is ‘emergent femininity’ (Tan and Shi, 2020), which is produced by the new ‘desiring regime’ of the post-socialist era (Rofel, 2007). This process has greatly improved women's social status: all the participants in our research have university-level education backgrounds and professional jobs.…”

Through the cultural looking glass: Diversity ideologies and cultural sharing in intercultural romantic relationships

“…Intercultural relationships, ones in which partners are from different cultural backgrounds, are increasingly common (Rico et al, 2018). Partners in intercultural relationships often encounter challenges in managing their cultural differences, including differences in communication styles (Fonseca et al, 2021), language (Tili & Barker, 2015), and religion (Warner Colaner et al, 2023), among other factors. Early research on intercultural couples focused on the problems partners face in communicating about their cultural differences and documented the lower satisfaction they experience, relative to monocultural couples (Hohmann-Marriott & Amato, 2008; Karis & Killian, 2011).…”